St Andrews: A Diversity of Sorts

For a university that boasts so enthusiastically about its international student body, priding itself on having undergraduates who represent over 120 nationalities, St Andrews leaves much to be desired in terms of its socioeconomic diversity. I know what you’re thinking – this has all been said before; that St Andrews students are posh; it’s all old news. But why have we so easily resigned to this elitism? Why do we not seem to even care?

The 2015 university guide released by The Times and Sunday Times revealed that, while St Andrews came in third for the greatest number of overseas students, it was also in 125th place out of 127 for state-school admissions. Equally worrying, the guide revealed that the university was in 124th place for the number of working-class students, who only make up 13.1% of our student body. It seems mixing students from the world’s most affluent areas and cities passes for social diversity in St Andrews.

For British students, it is easy to blame the inequality of our country’s schooling system, in which a higher-valued education has become something purchasable. Figures released by The Times suggest that social and educational background plays at least some role in the admissions process. But what if the problem starts before students even apply?

I come from the West End which, admittedly, makes me posh by Glasgow standards, although perhaps not by St Andrews standards. I went to a state school, where the student body was more or less comprised of pupils from a similar background.

Only two out of 180 students from my school – which is located in one of the more affluent areas in Glasgow – came to St Andrews, which certainly says something about our university’s socioeconomic composition. But, what I found more startling, was that only five pupils applied to the university constantly proclaimed Scotland’s finest. So what is it about St Andrews that deters so many students from even applying?

The truth is, student life at St Andrews is designed and crafted for the well-off. In first year, we are charged £6000 a year for halls which, let’s face it, aren’t that great (I can’t speak for everyone, but ABH was quite grim). If we decide to find a house or a flat, we face housing prices which are considerably higher than those of Glasgow or Dundee. Aside from living costs, our social calendar consists of an array of costly balls, fashion shows, and other events that, as we are implicitly yet incessantly reminded, constitute the true ‘St Andrews Experience’.

Maybe the problem is we accept our absurdly high-priced social calendar as normal – at some point in our degree, we passively agreed that paying £35 for six hours (if anybody really manages to stay for the whole thing) of music from a DJ that nobody actually knows and a cone of Janetta’s ice cream was a standard aspect of university life. It only really hit me when my friend from home firmly refused to come to one of these balls due to its price. Then the realisation slowly dawned on me: do other students actually not pay a fortune to go to events which, more often than not, aren’t much more memorable than a night at the Vic?

What message do we send to the student that can’t afford to buy a ticket for one of these events — that they can’t be part of the true St Andrews experience; that they are not real St Andrews students? The Facebook event for the St Andrews Ball tells us that we are invited to join them “as we turn towards the future and celebrate the town, students, and the University that brings us all together.” It’s never explained how the £35 ticket price also brings us together.

Those gowns aren’t cheap (Photo courtesy See Wah)

But, as I sit here and write this, I feel like a hypocrite. A hypocrite because I go to these events; because I choose to go to the balls instead of stubbornly staying in on a Friday night to make a stand against the inequalities that costly tickets perpetuate. But, generally speaking, so do most students.

And why? Because as much as they may complain about the prices of these events, they can afford it. Because the socioeconomic homogeneity of  our student body has become the perfect tool to conceal any traces of exclusion that such events could result in. The complaints of those who could not afford it do not exist because the image we have created for ourselves as a university simply deters them from applying. And so the vicious circle continues.

Ultimately, the make-up of our university should be a better reflection of the real world we are about to enter. Diversity means including students that differ, not only in their culture, but in their perspective. There are some things you simply cannot learn without being part of a socioeconomically varied student body – no matter how highly ranked your university is or how many different languages are spoken at it.